New emails show IRS stalled criminal probe of targeting

Emails obtained by Judicial Watch show that the IRS stalled a criminal investigation into its practice of targeting conservative groups. IRS delayed granting permission to an agency employee to meet with investigators, despite the employee’s eagerness to testify.

The employee’s attorney expressed his frustration with the IRS’s delay to the Department of Justice on June 12, 2013, saying “we find it amazing that [IRS attorneys] didn’t immediately respond giving us the green light to meet with you.” The DOJ lawyer appeared to share the concern. He wrote back: “Let’s talk in a.m. if they don’t get back to you.”

Nonetheless, it was another month before the employee met with two Justice Department prosecutors, two FBI officials, and an investigator from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The meeting appears to have occurred on July 11.

Of the two Justice Department attorneys present, one apparently was from the Public Integrity Section and one was from the Civil Rights Division. The Public Integrity previously has been tied to an effort to work with the Obama IRS against the very groups and individuals critical of the Obama administration and the president’s reelection that the IRS has admitted to illicitly targeting.

As for the Civil Rights Division, it is an ultra-left-wing enclave within the liberal DOJ. Catherine Engelbrecht of True the Vote has slammed the Justice Department for refusing to meet with her about “targeting” complaint without the presence of an attorney from the Civil Rights Division. At the time, the Civil Rights Division was trying to block True the Vote from intervening in voter ID litigation.

Barbara Bosserman, an attorney at the Civil Rights Division, reportedly has taken a lead role in the IRS investigation at Justice. According to Federal Election Commission records, Bosserman contributed $6,750 to Obama’s campaigns and the DNC from 2004 to 2012. William J. Wilkins, the Chief Counsel for the IRS, was a former Democratic Senate staffer and a donor to Democratic candidates and committees. Wilkins is a political appointee.

The latest batch of emails obtained by Judicial Watch (it’s the second) is far from complete. The production consists of 34 pages of heavily redacted emails. DOJ admits that it reviewed 938 pages of responsive records related to this production. All told, the DOJ has reviewed 1,772 pages of records in this case, but only produced 36 heavily redacted pages.

Nonetheless, the newly released documents provide the first real glimpse into the Justice Department’s criminal investigation of the IRS targeting scandal. The picture isn’t pretty. As Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton says:

These documents show that the Obama IRS Counsel’s office, run by an Obama political appointee, was stonewalling a federal criminal investigation. And only in the Holder Justice Department would it be deemed appropriate that the offices implicated in the IRS abuses should investigate the IRS abuses. . . .

This is an ugly mess and it is no surprise that, after nearly two years, the criminal investigation of the Obama IRS by its co-conspirators at the Obama Justice Department is widely acknowledged as a farce.

No wonder the House Oversight Committee plans to press on with its probe of this scandal.